[rad-green] Bernie Sanders: The Democrats Dilemma

*https://stansburyforum.com/2020/02/15/bernie-sanders-the-democrats-dilemma
<https://stansburyforum.com/2020/02/15/bernie-sanders-the-democrats-dilemma>THE
STANSBURY FORUM          FEBRUARY 15, 2020Bernie Sanders: The Democrats
DilemmaBY PETER OLNEY AND RAND WILSON*

The American presidential primaries began in earnest on February 3, 2020,
with the now infamous Iowa caucuses.[1]
<https://stansburyforum.com/2020/02/15/bernie-sanders-the-democrats-dilemma#_ftn1>
 Iowa is a small mid-western state with a population of 3,155,070. Almost
85% of its residents are white – hardly representative of the U.S. as a
whole, yet this is where the voting begins every four years to nominate
candidates to the Democratic and Republican parties. It is a process of
thousands of local meetings held across the state where voters come
together to “caucus” for their chosen candidates. While most American
states have simple ballot voting for candidates, the Iowa system choses its
delegates based on a complicated formula “initial alignment votes” and
“final alignment votes” that are used to determine the statewide number of
“state delegate equivalents” for Iowa’s 41 delegates to the Democrats
nominating convention.

One thing is clear: democratic socialist Bernie Sanders won the popular
vote with 42,672 first choice votes, about 6,000 votes more than former
South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg. However, the byzantine caucus
system apportioned 13 delegates to Buttigieg and only 12 to Sanders.

Sanders’ strong showing in Iowa was followed by a narrow victory on
February 11 in the New Hampshire primary — another small and racially
unrepresentative state — but an important bellwether of voter sentiment on
the road to the nomination. Sanders won with 25.7% of the vote, Pete
Buttigieg came in second at 24.4%, followed by a surprising strong third
place finish for Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar at 19.8%.[2]
<https://stansburyforum.com/2020/02/15/bernie-sanders-the-democrats-dilemma#_ftn2>
The
dismal fourth place finish for Senator Elizabeth Warren of neighboring
Massachusetts at 9.2% is of concern to the left because she and Sanders
represent the anti-corporate wing of the electoral field.

Support for Sanders’ is surging with a strong base of young people and
working-class voters. Amazingly, more than 1.5 million people have donated
to his campaign with an average contribution of only $18. Unlike other
candidates, who rely on major donors from Wall Street and corporate
America, Sanders’ grass roots effort has shattered all previous records by
raising over $121 million dollars — $25 million in January 2020 alone.[3]
<https://stansburyforum.com/2020/02/15/bernie-sanders-the-democrats-dilemma#_ftn3>

Despite Bernie’s initial successes, many Democrats have raised concerns
about whether Bernie is the best candidate to beat Republican President
Donald Trump on November 3, 2020. Beating Trump will require a “united
front” of voters who may not be ready to support Bernie’s more radical
“social democratic” proposals. For example, Sanders has championed Medicare
for All and free college tuition for all, policies that are long
established in Europe but viewed as very radical in the United States.

The U.S. “winner-take-all” Electoral College system does not lend itself to
building electoral support with your preferred candidate in the election
and then making parliamentary alliances after the election to form a
government. In the case of the U.S., it will require broad unity behind one
candidate for the Democrats to defeat Trump.

While the corporate-controlled news media is constantly degrading Bernie’s
chances, there is a strong argument that he is the best candidate to form
the broad coalition needed to beat Trump. In a head-to-head match-up with
Trump, Bernie Sanders is the best candidate to:

   - Peel off white, working-class voters who helped elect Trump in 2016
   out of disgust with neo-liberal Hillary Clinton;
   - Inspire a grassroots movement for social and economic justice along
   with the passion and energy of millennials that is essential for the
   on-the-ground, door-to-door mobilization needed to beat Trump;
   - Perform especially well in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan – the
   three states that went to Trump by a margin of only a little more than
   80,000 votes in 2016.

The Sanders’ candidacy — and his prospect of becoming president — seriously
threaten the neo-liberal Wall Street regime and the military industrial
complex that have so richly profited from America’s unbridled “frontier
capitalism.” For that reason, the Democratic Party establishment will stop
at nothing to prevent his nomination.

After the 2016 Democratic Convention debacle, where unelected “super
delegates” carried the vote for Clinton in the first round of delegate
votes, the Democratic Party was forced to prevent them from voting in the
first round in 2020.  However, party officials will still allow these
unelected delegates to vote in the second and any additional rounds in a
“brokered” convention, where these delegates would likely tip the
nomination away from a progressive candidate.

The nominating process is still in its very early stages and a lot can
happen before the July 13-16 convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The
biggest day of the primary process is “Super Tuesday,” March 3 when 14
states vote including California with 400 delegates.[4]
<https://stansburyforum.com/2020/02/15/bernie-sanders-the-democrats-dilemma#_ftn4>

Bernie Sanders will likely maintain 20-30 percent support because of his
long history of principled stands on the issues that matter most to working
class families. With many candidates in the field, he may have the most
delegates, but not enough for a first ballot majority at the convention. A
first ballot victory requires 1990 pledged delegates – elected in primaries
and caucuses – for victory.  If the delegate vote goes to a second round,
Sanders is likely to lose to a more moderate candidate because of the votes
from 771 *unelected *super delegates. That would rekindle charges of the
party once again rigging the nomination — and it could destroy the unity
needed post-convention to defeat Trump. What a depressing scenario!

That is the Democrats dilemma: Unless there is a first ballot consensus,
the party could suffer a deep and ugly split. With the pro-corporate
Democratic establishment so determined to stop Sanders and the
transformation of the party by any means, this might result in defeat in
November and the nightmare of four more years of Trump.

That’s an unacceptable outcome. In the remaining months, we must build a
determined mass movement of progressive Democrats, independents (unenrolled
voters) and the emerging socialist tendency to help Bernie win on the first
ballot or find a consensus candidate who unites Americans of good will who
want to save democracy and defeat Donald Trump. This is a not an election
to allow self-righteous ideological purity to obfuscate the need for a huge
political uprising to block Trump from securing a potentially disastrous
second term.

…
------------------------------

[1]
<https://stansburyforum.com/2020/02/15/bernie-sanders-the-democrats-dilemma#_ftnref1>
2020
Iowa Democratic caucuses,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Iowa_Democratic_caucuses

[2]
<https://stansburyforum.com/2020/02/15/bernie-sanders-the-democrats-dilemma#_ftnref2>
Jonathan
Martin and Alexander Burns, “Bernie Sanders Scores Narrow Victory in New
Hampshire Primary,” New York Times, February 11, 2020, at
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/us/politics/bernie-sanders-new-hampshire-primary.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
.

[3]
<https://stansburyforum.com/2020/02/15/bernie-sanders-the-democrats-dilemma#_ftnref3>
Eliza
Collins and Chad Day, “Bernie Sanders Raised $25 Million in January,” Wall
Street Journal, February 6, 2020, at
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bernie-sanders-raised-25-million-in-january-11580986800;
K.K. Rebecca Lai, Josh Katz, Rachel Shorey, Thomas Kaplan and Derek
Watkins, “The Donors Powering the Campaign of Bernie Sanders,” New York
Times, February 1, 2020, at
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/01/us/politics/democratic-presidential-campaign-donors.html
.

[4]
<https://stansburyforum.com/2020/02/15/bernie-sanders-the-democrats-dilemma#_ftnref4>
“Super
Tuesday,” from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Tuesday#2020

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